WriYe Blogging Cricle: Characters and Names

Characters: How do you come up with your characters? Do you pull from real life and people you know or someplace else? Do you have a hard time with characterization or find it a breeze? 

Bonus: Names: How do you come up with names? 

They kind of just come to me. I usually figure out the plot first and the characters fall into place. Sometimes a name really sticks with me or a picture I see on Pinterest and it starts an idea that grows. My character develops with it. There are times when I have the characters in my head but they don't have names so I give them a temporary name until one finally fits the character.

I don't pull characters from real life or people I know. A character might have a certain trait, but I would never base a full character off of someone I knew. It would be too weird for me because I don't feel like I know people well enough to actually write about them in my story and it makes me a little uncomfortable. So, I stick with creating my own characters with maybe a trait or two from someone I know. Do this makes it less complicated.

Sometimes I do have a hard time with characterization. My MC for Hourglass was a lot harder for me to get into his head but after a few exercises I was able to do some. Also, the writing group I'm a part of really loves doing character building so I pulled a lot from that as well. I might not have joined them for their fun but I certainly learned by reading back on what they did. Maybe next time I'll join them. 

Bonus Answer: Sometimes I meet someone with a really cool name. I work with kids and some of the children that pass through the center have some interesting names but I don't always use them. I usually get my names from a baby names website. The one I've been using a lot has been Nameberry. I've also been "collecting" names in a file called "name bank" that I can reference if I need a name quickly. I can access it anywhere so it makes it easy to add more names to it as I hear them.